I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.
-–Diane Arbus
My favorite camera lens uses available light so brilliantly it is possible to shoot indoors and at night without a flash. Its wide apertures provide a tight focus with marvelous effect: the background or foreground distractions go blurred and buttery soft while the subject almost leaps into the centre of the universe, no matter where in the frame it is , commanding attention. It’s magic.
I often wish for such a magic lens when considering the real life choices available to us today, something that would select the true North of any situation and bring it into focus, letting the noise and distraction go blurry and indistinct. Books, movies, music, food, travel, clothes – we have so much to choose from now. The possibilities are endless.
But rather than making us feel lucky and blessed, the effect of advertising, consumerism and a menu that extends through next week makes us feel that no matter what we choose, we choose wrong. I could have had that flavor, I could be listening to that song, I could be with that person. A gnawing sense of dissatisfaction is the hallmark of our age. We don’t know which wonder to focus on. We want it all and we want it now and chasing after everything, more often than not, we end up with nothing.
Limits, paradoxically, set us free. They narrow our range but they deepen our scope. They make it possible to accomplish the significant.
People with disability, and those who care for them, understand this better than most. If purposeful movement is difficult, you don’t waste energy on the random or the unnecessary. If you are using a communication board to speak, you say only what’s essential . And if there are three ways to interpret a situation, you select the one which assumes the best because you know that things are seldom as they seem.
You focus. You choose what is important and you give it your full attention because life is too short and too precious to waste on what is ephemeral or irrelevant.
In photography, what you leave out is as important as what you include. You choose what to highlight and what to blur and with careful framing and a precise focus, you create a work of art from stuff another person might not even notice. At Karuna Vihar, like patient, observant photographers, our staff devote themselves to the children in their care, using available light and the depth of their field to bring each child’s special gifts into focus and help them become who they are meant to be.
Not surprisingly, every single one of them is a work of art.
-–Jo Chopra
